Doll's Eye

Doll’s Eye explores the themes of love, loss, oppression, belonging, and displacement, with Nazi Germany the vessel that drives the narrative. The prose is outstanding, and the storytelling is raw. A master of historical storytelling, Leah Kaminsky continues to capture moments in time with an eye for detail.

Samuel Bernard, The Australian

An absorbing and richly imagined novel of love, hope and resilience through dark, almost mythical times. Vivid, haunting, unforgettable.

Lucy Treloar

With her trademark compassion and heart, Kaminsky brings this story of adventure, exile and betrayal to vivid life.

Toni Jordan

Kaminsky's best book yet. A moving quixotic adventure, steeped in ancient traditions and trembling with the darkest storms of history.

Bram Presser

Leah Kaminsky’s career as a writer began at the highest level of achievement and her second book attracted acclaim as a ripping, literate and easefully clever book. But Doll’s Eye is worthy of her other two books and has magnificent qualities of humane invention. It is my nomination for a book to read at the end of times.

Tom Keneally

Leah Kaminsky did it again! Created yet another compelling and thought-provoking novel. Doll’s Eye tells an unforgettable, complex and also oh-so-relatable love story between two European refugees escaping the Nazi atrocities to Australia’s north only to find there each other, as well as the burdens of their dreams and past terrors. With a poet’s eye, Kaminsky traces the intricate outlines and tender inner recesses of the human heart that always knows how to long and to seek but not always how to find and belong. This beautiful book can help us all understand our private joys and sorrows within the context of larger stories of history and geography, and it still reverberates somewhere deep in me, long after I turned its last page.

Lee Kofman

Lyrical, moving and captivating, Doll’s Eye is a skilful and beautifully written study of trust and mistrust, hidden truths and misinterpreted lies. Against the backdrop of an impending war, Leah Kaminsky carefully and lovingly brings to life two unlikely companions who, no longer safe in their European homeland, search for a place to belong.

Suzanne Leal

Part literary romance, part cultural odyssey, Doll’s Eye is a lively challenge to the tropes of contemporary Australian Holocaust fiction. Kaminsky has a rare and sparkling talent for showing how love operates within grim realities caused by human frailty and evil, writing with both charm and honesty.

Kim Kelly, Newtown Review of Books

Leah Kaminsky skilfully weaves the two stories of Anna and Alter against the backdrop of war in Europe and the emergence of a new Australia. Slowly, Anna’s shocking story is revealed, only to dash her relationship with Alter. A fascinating and riveting insight into how the turmoil of the '30s and '40s impacted people's lives, and changed societies.

Mark Rubbo, Chairman of Readings

In this beautifully told historical novel, Kaminsky explores true Australian stories:

Therese Murray, The Senior

Doll’s Eye draws the reader in and sustains suspense throughout. A most satisfying read.

Erica Dreifus, Brief Book Reviews